In an interviewÂ*Frank Gibeau, head of their labels division of Electronic Arts, stated that digital rights management is a 'failed dead-end strategy' is. He also stated that DRM was not an intentio...

"At no point in time did anybody say 'you must make this online'. It was the creative people on the team that thought it was best to create a multiplayer collaborative experience and when you're building entertainment... you don't always know what the customer is going to want. You have to innovate and try new things and surprise people and in this particular case that's what we sought to achieve. If you play an MMO, you don't demand an offline mode, you just don't. And in fact, SimCity started out and felt like an MMO more than anything else and it plays like an MMO," he continued.

They're just talking out of their asses tbh. It's like releasing Chrono Trigger 2 and going WELP TIME TO MAKE IT ALWAYS ONLINE. Sense - it makes none. From what I've seen, no one really cares for the online featuers of SimCity anyway.

I just don't understand Maxis at all. While I can understand them trying to innovate SimCity by offering a mulitplayer mode, I cannot understand why they thought it was a good idea to abandon the single player mode completely. That is what they've done essentially by adding the always-online DRM using the server for storing games on and forcing people to play the game differently. SimCity has always been a single player game and that's how it should remain IMO.

I have nothing against adding multiplayer modes (even though I have no interest in them) so long as there's a single player component there that hasn't suffered because of it. This new SimCity has clearly suffered from some major compromises as a result of being online: one, you can save locally therefore if everything goes tits up then you cannot revert to an earlier save. Two, the cities are now much smaller because of the forced multiplayer element. Three, the online DRM has resulted in a game where people had to queue up to play it even if they weren't interested in the multiplayer elements.

Basically, EA and Maxis messed this game up big time and I have no doubts that the game was made to be multiplayer so they could justify the always-online DRM. Blizzard did the same thing with Diablo III, only rather than multiplayer they insisted that the always-online element existed because of the Auction House (something which I never once used by the way in the 150 hours I played the game solo). That was also done to minimize piracy too undoubtedly and seems to have worked for Blizzard after a wonky start. I don't believe for one second that those EA SimCity meetings that Gibeau mentioned did not mention ways to prevent piracy and, thus, whether to use always-online DRM. I expect the massive success of Diablo III was on their mind throughout SimCity final development.

They're just talking out of their asses tbh. It's like releasing Chrono Trigger 2 and going WELP TIME TO MAKE IT ALWAYS ONLINE. Sense - it makes none. From what I've seen, no one really cares for the online featuers of SimCity anyway.

To be honest? Honest how, what proof, why? This simcity is clearly, clearly designed at least as a very social game, if not an MMO. What he said is absolutely true, its obvious to anyone not blinded my ridiculousness.

And no, it would be like making Chrono Trigger 2 a multiplayer game where your friends all control their own character and you fight through dungeons and the story together, and then making THAT online only.

EDIT: Was it a bad to call to remove single player in a game where the single player fans are the basis of your fanbase? Absolutely. Does that make it "ALWAYS ONLINE DRM AND EA IS BAD AND **** U MAXIS"? No.

"It started with the team at Maxis that had a creative vision for a multiplayer, connected, collaborative SimCity experience where your city and my city and others' were [working together]; for better or for worse, and for right or for wrong, the lead designers and the producers and the programmers felt like they wanted to tell us a multiplayer, cooperative city story around SimCity."

This is probably true, but there is no denying that it was EA who saw an opportunity to include DRM easily in this vision. Otherwise there would be an option for offline play. It is extra work that no developer would like to do and it also increases server costs and brings related problems.

To be honest? Honest how, what proof, why? This simcity is clearly, clearly designed at least as a very social game, if not an MMO. What he said is absolutely true, its obvious to anyone not blinded my ridiculousness.

That's fine I guess if you go for that kind of thing but why strip out the offline single player completely, especially when it means much smaller cities and no local save options? That is a step backward IMO. SimCity has always been a single player game and to suddenly go to being an online multiplayer... sorry... social one is a bizarre choice IMO. What reason is there for not offering both an offline single player *and* an online social mode?

Always-online DRM aside, I would buy the game if it had a proper single player with local saves and larger cities but I am not interested in social gaming at all. Never will be so EA have lost a potential sale right there.

To be honest? Honest how, what proof, why? This simcity is clearly, clearly designed at least as a very social game, if not an MMO. What he said is absolutely true, its obvious to anyone not blinded my ridiculousness.

And no, it would be like making Chrono Trigger 2 a multiplayer game where your friends all control their own character and you fight through dungeons and the story together, and then making THAT online only.

People getting locked out of the game at launch really helps the "it wusnt drm we promis!!" arguement. If it wasn't supposed to be "always on DRM" then why is it practically just that?

Would be more like you need to sign in before starting a new single player game of CT2 only to be denied access due to ****ty servers.

That's fine I guess if you go for that kind of thing but why strip out the offline single player completely, especially when it means much smaller cities and no local save options? That is a step backward IMO. SimCity has always been a single player game and to suddenly go to being an online multiplayer... sorry... social one is a bizarre choice IMO. What reason is there for not offering both an offline single player *and* an online social mode?

Always-online DRM aside, I would buy the game if it had a proper single player with local saves and larger cities but I am not interested in social gaming at all. Never will be so EA have lost a potential sale right there.

Absolutely, they had a vision for it, and it was the wrong vision for their fanbase.

But that doesn't make them bad, or evil, or anything else the poor ****ing people have been called...It just means they made a bad call.

Quote:

Would be more like you need to sign in before starting a new single player game of CT2 only to be denied access due to ****ty servers.

The idea is that there isn't a single player mode. Yeah, I know, dev console or whatever can enable a psuedo single player mode without a third of the game's features. It doesn't count. What they envisioned was clearly a game where cities were a collaborative effort.

This is probably true, but there is no denying that it was EA who saw an opportunity to include DRM easily in this vision. Otherwise there would be an option for offline play. It is extra work that no developer would like to do and it also increases server costs and brings related problems.

Exactly, having to keep servers running for a game is massively expensive and online games require constant maintenance and updating. It is why I find it so bizarre that there is no offline mode, which at least would have offered people who bought the game something to fall back on during those first two weeks of server issues.

And, EA, as we all know, are notorious for turning off servers after three years so who's to say they won't do the same for SimCity, just in time for its sequel? Once they turn off the servers then the game will be all but useless.

I don't get why it doesn't have an offline mode either, it just doesn't make sense to me other than for DRM purposes. Like you can play by yourself in the game, but it doesn't let you play offline which is really stupid IMO.

In an interviewÂ*Frank Gibeau, head of their labels division of Electronic Arts, stated that digital rights management is a 'failed dead-end strategy' is. He also stated that DRM was not an intentio...

understand it just fine, but to me simcity is not a mmo, Mulitplayer features sure MMO its it not

The can also of easly made so it can collaborate with other people cites, with out making the game NEED to be online always, Multiplayer mode vs Single moment any game need me to be online, to just access my own saves is the moment i say hell no.

I installed the game on my personal PC i want all my info on my PC not on there servers

It's not that they were forced to make an online only game for DRM purposes. I rather suspect that they were forced to make an online game purely because of all these "projections" that single player games don't sell anymore. I HIGHLY doubt that Maxis didn't at least want to put basic single player support in there, because it's pants on head stupid not to. Unless you don't have a choice, of course.

BS, no offense to you but BS. EA has been caught lying several times now. Now you think its ok to believe them? They are talking out their ass to save face plain and simple. EA has lied every step of the way about the fiasco of SimCity, first they said (through Maxis) that servers were needed to "offload computations [that desktops cant handle]", proven false, then they said it would require massive coding that was not feasible to make an offline mode, once again, that was proven false, finally with the pants around their ankles they finally just said "fine, no single player because we didnt want to, anyone who wanted it well FU".

Now, they are once again, trying to lie their way out of this PR nightmare they created themselves.

Whether you like the games the developers under EA make, or hell, even if you like Origin, the facts are EA has been trying to shoehorn their way into the DD market by forcing Origin, tried to kill off modding communities in order to monetize DLC, and thinking of every creative way they can manipulate the community to accept DRM to lock down users also killing second hand sales. NONE of this is because they want to make better games. No, the developers want to make better games, EA is a corporation whose sole purpose is to maximize their profits with any business scheme they can imagine.

EA isnt alone in this, several other publishers do the same thing. It's sad really, because there are tons of really talented people who love games, who put their sweat and tears into making games for all of us who love games. They are the artists and almost none of us would balk about supporting artists, it's the greedy middlemen that **** us both.

It is quite like the motion picture industry used to be, where major studios "owned" actors and they basically acted like their slaves while under contract, if you didn't like how your contract was, you couldn't get work anywhere in hollywood. Luckily we have things like Kickstarter and other Indie publishers that create games without those middlemen and we can enjoy the art that games are without all this BS.

/rant over (and not all directed at you whoever it was I was responding to)

This statement from ea read like a delayed, well thought out piece of damage control. What was said in that article is something that should of been said the moment the issue of sim city being online only was mentioned, it should not have taken as long as it has for a statement of clarification to be published.

Though blantantly saying the new sim city was practically going to be an MMO wouldnt of done wonders for pre-orders and first week sales though, right.